Red Wine
by coloe
Summary: An alternative version to the wedding crash...
1. Chapter 1

"Pwwwwwwwhhhhhh!"

Cheryl didn't even notice the faces turn towards her thunderous nose-blowing. She patted the bright pink hanky at her tear-stained cheeks. Through her watery eyes she watched the earnest, innocent face of Ste Hay as he listened to his husband commit to him forever, watched his own mouth trying to suppress an impish grin as he stumbled over his own lines. Finally, he was happy.

A little flutter of sadness crossed her as she thought of Brendan sitting at home, watching the seconds tick by on the Marilyn Monroe clock on the mantelpiece, wondering with every second if Ste was married yet. She loved her brother, in spite of everything. His round fearful eyes had silently begged her to tell him that it wasn't true, that Ste and Doug wouldn't be married today, that he hadn't realised who he wanted and who he wanted to be too late.

But Ste's eyes were burned into her memory too, swimming with tears and hurt and humiliation, time and time again. So many times he had asked Cheryl why. Why, when he lay his vulnerable heart open in front of her brother, did he finger it and then stamp on it and then drag it through the streets to see it bleed? She never had an answer. She, Cheryl Brady, who could talk for Ireland. She, who had defended her brother against countless accusations, most of them true. Somehow, when that wee lad looked at her with his bruised face all she could feel was sorry.

Ste deserved this. Every inch of his face was shining with joy, a different face to the crippled sorrow she had seen on it before. Again, she filled the hall with the deafening sound of her nose-blowing.

Suddenly, her phone jangled in her pocket. Annalise. Again. This must be the four-hundredth call she'd had this morning from her.

"Sorry, sorry," she apologised in a stage whisper as she clambered out over Frankie and Jack. "Duty calls, you know!"

"Annalise, what is it?" she answered once safely outside. "They're in the middle of the ceremony for crying out loud!"

"It's… oh, Cheryl, it's so awful! What are we going to do? It's ruined, the whole thing is ruined!"

"Annalise, you're scaring me?" Cheryl said sharply. "What is it? Is it the food? If that catering mongrel is after messing up the order I swear I'm going to use my Boxercise moves on him!"

"Place-names, Cheryl! They're not here!" Annalise's voice was quivering dangerously.

"Of course they are!" Cheryl reassured her. "I saw them this morning, they're in a box right under–"

Right under her kitchen table. She could see them in her mind. Exactly where she had left them the night before so she wouldn't forget them the next day.

"They're not here, Cheryl!" Annalise was wailing. "It's going to be carnage! Everybody running around trying to figure out where to sit… What if they start moving the chairs around? What if–"

"It's ok, Annalise, I'll sort it!" Cheryl barked over the almost inaudible squeaks that were coming across the phone line. She hung up, her mind racing. Somehow, without Annalise's voice shrieking horrific possibilities in her ear her own brain started to do it instead. What if the vegetarians were served meat?

There was only one person who could save this disaster.

"Brendan!" she bellowed as soon as the phone was answered. "I need your help!"

"What is it Chez?" his voice came tiredly over the line.

"The place-names, under the kitchen table!" she shouted. "I need you to bring them to the reception venue!"

"Chez, I… I can't be around that place now," Brendan protested. "I helped with the set up, you know I did. I spent all morning driving back and forth with whatever you told me to. But I can't, not now."

"Pleeeeeeeeeeease Brendan!" she begged him, batting away the wisps of guilt. "It's a matter of life and death!"

"Seriously, Chez? Life and death? Who's gonna die coz they don't have a piece of paper with their name on it?"

"Annalise!" Cheryl cried. "I'm worried about her Brendan, she's about to crack. She doesn't have my calmness, poor love."

"Yeah, well few are blessed with that gift, Chez."

"Look, just jump in the van and spin over, it'll take all of five minutes!" Cheryl cajoled. "I'll leave now and meet you there, and you'll be gone before anyone even arrives. Sure they're still in the middle of the ceremony, the boys are just saying their vows now!"

She winced as she said it, not hearing the words until she'd spoken them out loud and they couldn't be taken back.

"Their vows, yeah," Brendan said, and Cheryl could almost see his eyes flitting about the place as he spoke, focusing on nothing. "Right. Ok Chez. Place-names. Consider it done."

"Oh thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you," she sang down the phone, but she was already listening to the engaged tone.

With a final glance at the hall she had transformed into a garden of blue delphiniums and white roses, she took off clacking across the gravel, one hand rammed into her head to keep her purple fascinator in place. The reception venue was only a ten minute walk away, a beautiful construction of glass and timber looking down onto the grassy slopes of a hill to where they met with a small stream. Perfect for photos, she had told the two happy couples as she sold the idea to them. Stand on the hill, sunset behind ye's, stream in the background. It looked less beautiful when approached at a hasty jog in six inch heels and a pencil skirt, though.

"Annalise!" she shouted, waving an arm at the distraught girl who was standing outside the door. Cheryl felt her fascinator wobble dangerously.

Annalise clacked her way over to Cheryl with her own hasty heel-clad jog.

"Cheryl, what are we going to do?" she wailed, her pretty pink lips trembling uncontrollably.

"It's… s'ok…" Cheryl panted, patting her reassuringly on the arm. "I called… Brendan… bringing them… now…"

"Brendan is bringing them over?" Annalise shrieked happily.

"I need… water…" Cheryl answered.

"This is fantastic! The day is saved! It's a miracle, Cheryl, a real live miracle!"

"There he is now…" Cheryl panted, pointing at the rickety van speeding towards them down the drive.

Again, she lifted up the hand steadying her fascinator to wave at Brendan whose figure she could make out in the driver's seat. He had come through. She owed him big.

The van continued to speed towards them, racing up. He really was desperate to come and go as fast as he could, wasn't he? She and Annalise stood expectantly in the middle of the road. The van was hurtling towards them. She was starting to make out his face now and her heart began to quicken again. Why wasn't he slowing down? His face, there was something wrong with it. Panic. She saw him glance down, fearfully. The van rocketed on. The brakes, she remembered.

"Annalise!" she screamed, pushing the girl to the ground, flinging both of them off the road. Her face was buried in the gravel when the crash filled her ears. Her head hummed with noise. Struggling, she was on her feet. Her shoes were kicked off and she was running, barefoot. She didn't feel the broken glass on her skin as she sprinted through gaping hole carved through the wedding venue. The van was in the middle of the sloping hill, lying on its side, brakeless wheels spinning in the air. She smelled the fire before she saw the flames licking at its metalwork.

"Brendaaaaaaaan!" the scream erupted from somewhere deep inside her. She flung herself down the hill, towards the flaming vehicle. No, no, no, no!

"Cheryl, it's going to explode!" Annalise shrieked behind her, but Cheryl couldn't hear. Her eyes had just fixed on a crumpled lump lying on the ground twenty feet in front of the van. Half his head was in the river. The water was red.


	2. Chapter 2

"I love you, Ste Carter-Hay!" Doug declared happily.

There was a chorus of "awwws" from Leanne and Texas. They were standing outside the hall where the ceremony had taken place, the crisp sunshine making the day even more perfect.

"And I love you too, Doug Carter-Hay," Ste grinned back. "That sounds dead good, don't it? You think we should call the deli Carter-Hay and Carter-Hay's from now on?"

"Bit of a mouthful, I reckon," Leanne pitched in.

"I think it sounds great," Doug said, staring at Ste with earnest eyes. Ste felt an inexplicable blush rise in his cheeks. He was married. He and Doug were going to look after each other for the rest of their lives. Would people think he was weird if he pinched himself?

"Daddy, when's the food?" Lucas demanded at his side, making the adults laugh.

"It's now!" Ste told him. "I wonder where Cheryl is? She's meanta be like, leading the way, or whatever."

"She left during the ceremony," Jack told him, overhearing their conversation. "Some emergency at the reception venue I think."

"Emergency!" Ste exclaimed. "I don't like the sound of that, me! They better not have mucked up the food or summat!"

He felt Doug's fingers lace themselves between his own.

"You know what," he said quietly, so that no one but Ste could hear him. "The whole building could fall down and it wouldn't be enough to ruin this day."

Ste replied with a small, tender peck on the lips. "Here, Tony!" he shouted over. "Cheryl's gone ahead, we're just gonna start walking over ourselves."

Slowly, the crowd began to move along the gravelled pathway that wound its way around the front of a hill to meet the reception venue, chattering and laughing as they went. Ste's fingers stayed laced through Doug's as they walked, his other hand linked to Lucas while Leah skipped a few feet in front of them. This was all he would ever want.

"So what's the reception place like, then?" Leanne was asking.

"Oh wait until you see it," Doug told her. "It's so beautiful. It's made of these wooden beams that were hand-carved by local craftsmen, and the–"

He stopped speaking as they turned the corner, staring mouth agape. Ste ripped his eyes from the horrified face and followed his gaze to the beautiful wooden construction smashed into pieces of glass and timber with a gaping black hole in the centre.

"What the–"

"Help us!" a woman's voice screamed suddenly. Vaguely, Ste could make out the figure of Annalise stumbling towards them. Some of the crowd began running to meet her. Cries of "what happened?" echoed, panicked shouts permeating through the air.

"The minivan…" Ste could hear her broken sobs wafting over. "We need an ambulance…"

He turned to Doug, his face urgent.

"Someone's hurt, Doug," he said, fearfully. "Go help them, will ya? I don't want the kids seeing nothing scary, I gotta stay with them."

Already, most of the crowd had started running to the other side of the building to find out what had happened, who was hurt. Annalise, having delivered her message, had crumpled into a heap on the gravel, sobbing uncontrollably.

"Yeah, yeah of course," Doug nodded, squeezing Ste's hand inside his own. "You take the kids back to the hall, I'll find you there."

Suddenly, he heard it. Above the frightened shouts of the crowd of friends, above the tinkling sound of broken glass beneath feet. A familiar, booming, Northern Irish accent wailing miserably into the sky. And he knew.

In a second, he had pulled his hands away from Lucas and Doug, his feet were pounding over the gravel to the other side of the building. A crowd was gathered now, standing helplessly at the bottom of the small hill. Ste threw himself towards it and pushed his way through.

He halted at sight. Red, that was all he could see. All over his face, his pink skin turned red, his white teeth turned red, his black hair turned red.

"Bren–" he started in a whisper, but it had died before it moved from his lips. He flung himself onto the limp body. Cheryl was wailing wordlessly, bent over him too. Her breathing was in ragged gasps.

"No," Ste whimpered quietly. No, this couldn't be. "Brendan, wake up."

He used his thumbs to push the red away from the closed eyes.

"Brendan, can you hear me," he continued to breathe at him. "I said wake up."

Beside him, Cheryl's head was buried in the chest, fingers clawing at the arm. Ste could feel the hot tears dripping from his eyes onto the shiny red face underneath him. His thumbs found the lips and cleaned them too, whiskers from the moustache grating his skin.

"Open your eyes, Bren," he pleaded. "Just for a second."

Ste's hands wound their way up to grasp the limp, lifeless hand twisted up above the head, broken. The body beneath him was rocking now, but only from Cheryl's heaving sobs. Ste brought his lips down onto the lips, feeling their warmth. Why wasn't he waking up?

Suddenly, a low moan erupted from the crumpled body.

"Brendan?" Cheryl shrieked, lifting her head and bringing it up to his head, searching for some flicker of life in the red face. "Brendan! It's ok, love, the ambulance is on it's way."

Ste fell backwards, floored with relief. His fingers still clung tightly to the deformed hand.

Suddenly, the paramedics were there. Ste was moved aside. There was a gurney, a beeping machine, a spinal board. Men wore fluorescent jackets. There was a fire brigade, shouting orders at the crowd. The deaf bubbled Ste had been in was gone. The crowd was louder, and Cheryl's wails were louder. And then Doug was there, staring with tear-filled, betrayed eyes at Ste who's suit and hands and lips were smeared with Brendan's blood.


	3. Chapter 3

"And tomorrow, we'll all go in to Chester and get McDonalds!" Doug was telling Leah and Lucas as he tucked them into their old beds. It was a sign of how strange the last few hours had been for them that even the promise of chicken nuggets eaten out of a cardboard box couldn't bring a smile to their faces.

Who could blame them? Seeing their dad, covered in sticky scarlet blood. Watching his face twisted in fear and heartbreak. Knowing he was oblivious to them as he watched the flashing blue lights recede into the distance. Doug didn't feel like smiling either.

"Well, they're all tucked up," he told Ste, walking back into the living room.

"Right," Ste answered vaguely. "Thanks."

He was clean now, all the redness washed away down the plughole in the shower. He might as well still be covered in it, Doug felt.

"They're pretty shaken by… everything," Doug told him, trying to keep his voice normal. "I thought we could take them out for the day tomorrow. Into Chester maybe. Take their minds off it, you know?"

For the first time since he'd taken off sprinting towards their shattered wedding venue today, Ste was paying attention to him.

"Tomorrow?" he said. "What? No, I can't Doug!"

"Why not?" Doug was still trying to keep his voice normal, to bite back the accusation.

"I have to go to the hospital!"

There it was, all that red blood shining on his face, his lips. Still there, just invisible.

"Why?" Doug demanded, the normality fading fast. "Why do you need to go there? We got married today, Ste. We're newlyweds. Why do you need to spend the first day of our married life with him?"

"He might die Doug!" Ste said, disbelieving.

Doug swallowed back the "So what?" that he felt rising to his lips. It wasn't like he was hoping Brendan would die. Of course he wasn't, he wouldn't. But why was the thought of that happening so earth-shattering for his husband?

"I'm sure Cheryl will keep in touch," he said instead. "You don't have to be there, do you? I mean, the kids, they need you here."

"He needs me," Ste mumbled, his words barely audible. Doug felt like had shouted them in his face. Despair bubbled inside him. Was this it? Was this what his marriage was going to be? He thought once the vows were spoken that would be the end of this.

"You don't know him like you think you do, Ste," he said, voice heavy with desperation.

"What're you on about?"

"You think you know it all… All the bad things he's done… But you don't know… what he's capable of…"

"Doug–"

"No Ste, I mean it," he continued, taking Ste's phone from his own pocket where it had nestled since he borrowed it that morning. "You have no idea who he really is… how far he's gone…"

With a deep breath, he pressed the play button and Brendan Brady's voice filled the little room.

"…how I battered Danny Houston to death…"

Doug played the whole conversation and then let the silence that followed envelope the two of them, watching Ste's face twist in pain as if Doug had physically hurt him. But he couldn't stop now.

"He's a murderer, Ste," his voice trembled, but he carried on bravely. "Those terrible things he… he did to you… just a drop in the ocean… Murder, Ste."

When Ste spoke, his voice was a tiny whisper.

"I already knew he killed Danny."

Doug felt like he'd been thumped in the chest. He knew?

"What?" he panted. "You… knew…"

He _knew_?

"HE'S A MURDERER!" Doug screamed, leaping to his feet.

"Shush, Doug, the kids!"

"How can that not be enough? How can you still care?" Doug was helpless. "His hands battered another man to death, Ste!"

"I just… I didn't… It weren't as simple as that," Ste stammered.

"Oh yeah? Tell me then, what was complicated about it? How is it alright that he deliberately smashed the life out of someone?"

"It weren't alright, of course it weren't," Ste was pleading. "I were horrified… and disgusted… when I found out, I never wanted nothing more to do with him… but…"

"But what, Ste?" Doug asked bitterly.

Suddenly Ste's hands were on Doug's shoulders, face pressed into his, trying to make him understand.

"But he might die Doug," he choked, eyes brimming with tears.

"So what?" Doug said. "He's a murderer. He deserves to die."

Ste recoiled.

"No wait, Ste, I didn't mean…" Doug trailed off, terrified by the way Ste was looking at him. Like he didn't recognise him.

Without another word, Ste grabbed his keys and stalked out of the flat, slamming the door behind him.


End file.
